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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26168434">Don't Quote Me To Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonologistindenim/pseuds/demonologistindenim'>demonologistindenim</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:15:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,383</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26168434</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonologistindenim/pseuds/demonologistindenim</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Family don’t end in blood, Dean tells Crowley, and everything diverges from there. A canon-divergent series of Crowley-centric ficlets. Complete, posting weekly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Family Don't End In Blood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>These ficlets fall under the category of “spn incorrect quotes” or what I often repost on my Tumblr blog as #Crowley Steals Lines. The ficlets were inspired by <a href="https://inacatastrophicmind.tumblr.com/post/618468661514076160/spn-hiatus-creations-week-two-favorite-quote">this Tumblr quote giftset.</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“We’re family.” Crowley explained, to both himself and Dean. “We’re blood.” How else did one earn love than through cutting off a piece of oneself and offering it in supplication? If Rowena wanted a piece of his power, his authority, his kingdom, Crowley would give it to her, to keep her with him.</p><p>He feared what piece of himself, and how large, he might be willing to offer to Dean. How much might he have to give, how much of himself would he need to destroy, to be seen as an ally? To be more than a monster in the Winchesters’ eyes?</p><p>“That’s not the same thing,” the hunter countered. “Family don’t end in blood.”</p><p>And Crowley listened, heart in his throat, mangled soul in his eyes, as Dean Winchester explained to him what it meant to be family. It was everything Crowley had ever wanted. And the only piece of himself it cost was already so disparaged and small, that dark, ugly piece of himself, that cutting it off barely hurt at all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. If We Work Together</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Do you really think we can accomplish it?” Cas mused aloud. There was a time it would have seemed impossible that two human hunters, a fallen angel, and a reformed demon might be capable of altering the very fabric of the world. Shuttering the gates of heaven and hell, exiling the divine, designing a more just afterlife.</p><p>And yet, here they were.</p><p>Across the library table, Crowley raised his eyes from the array of detailed plans and calculations, and smiled knowingly.</p><p>“At this point, I am fairly certain that there is very little the Winchesters can’t do if they work together.”</p><p>There was a time he would never have stood across from a demon without feeling the unfurling of his wings and his fury. When he would never have considered this particular demon to be his friend, or felt comforted by his reassurance. There was a time when Crowley wasn’t one of them, hadn’t earned the right to refer to himself as a Winchester.</p><p>And yet, here they were.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter will be posted on 9.12.2020. Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. This Is Your Life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>From the attic window of the haunted house, Sam watches the little family leave for a night of trick-or-treating. The three kids are wrapped in scarves designating their Hogwarts house, the parents dressed as professors. They all clasp each other’s hands, to defend against the dark arts. Without their laughter to fill it, the house really does seem empty, haunted.</p><p>Scratch of chalk against baseboards as Crowley draws the chalk circle, prepares the banishment spell. Candles catch and flicker, chasing shadows into the eaves. Somewhere in the nearby graveyard, Cas and Dean are burning bones.</p><p>Sometimes Sam feels haunted by his own children. The family he and Jess never had, that he raised in a house like this and took trick-or-treating and trusted strangers to clear the ghosts from his attic on Halloween night. Children that he never had to defend against the darkness. He watches ghosts and witches and hobgoblins run and play in the street, knock on decorated doors in this safe, affluent neighborhood. He feels haunted by his own childhood’s lack of innocence.</p><p>They’re all haunted by something, Sam knows. Himself and Dean and Cas and Crowley. Haunted by what might have been, and by the past, and by themselves.</p><p>Crowley doesn’t look up from his work, doesn’t need to look out the window to know what Sam is watching. “Saving people and hunting things, this is your life, Sam. And in living it, you make the world a better place.” He leverages himself up from the crouch, dusts chalk from roughened, steady hands. “You know you do.”</p><p>If only that were enough to keep all these ghosts at bay.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter will be posted on 9.18.2020. Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Damned Or Not</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean hates the way Crowley sounds so damn smug about it. Smug, and amused, and resigned. As if it’s already been decided, like it’s just a given that Crowley’s the expendable one, the one they’re all just going to throw to the proverbial hellhounds when the time comes.</p><p>Dean fucking hates that.</p><p>It’s enough to make him slam on the breaks, slam the car door behind him, walk the deserted country road to where the headlights fade into the night. The creak of the passenger door, the familiar footsteps as the demon-turned-demonologist comes to stand beside the hunter. Together, they stare out into the dark.</p><p>“You seem to have forgotten that, of the lot of us” Crowley smirks, glances at Dean teasingly, “I’m the one entirely beyond redemption.”</p><p>Crowley damn well knows Dean hates it when he makes light of shit like this. Probably why he does it, the sonovabitch.</p><p>“Yeah, well. We’d rather have you, damned or not.”</p><p>The way the smirk falls away. The moment of uncertainty and cautious yearning before all the familiar walls go up, as if even after all these years Crowley’s not entirely convinced of Dean’s sincerity.</p><p>Yeah, Dean fucking hates that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! Next chapter to be posted 9.25.2020.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Eternity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“The righteous shall go into eternal life – Matthew 25:46,” Crowley reads the inscription on the arch of the mausoleum as Castiel turns the century-old, iron key in the lock. “If by eternal life they mean an immutable dopamine high in a prison cell made to look like a personal paradise, I’ll pass.”</p><p>The massive stone door shlunks open, raining dirt and cobwebs down on the pair. They squeeze together into the narrow space between crypts encased in stone, running fingers over engravings, searching. It’s cold here, smells of wet earth, and decay, and the real eternity that awaits.</p><p>“There is no righteous path, you know.” Cas say conversationally. “It’s just people trying to do their best in a world where it’s far too easy to do your worst.”</p><p>Brushing mold and grime away, Crowley finds the crypt their looking for. He smirks over his shoulder at the angel. “Singing to the choir, Feathers.”</p><p>Crowley knocks on the crypt.</p><p>After what seems like an eternity, something knocks back.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! I'm really enjoying posting these little ficlets. Maybe because I wrote them all in advance and all I have to do is post them now? I don't know, but I'm enjoying this particular canon divergent verse. The next chapter will be posted on 10.3.2020 and the last on 10.10.2020.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Another</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Another apocalypse, another end of all things. Another grand, yet-to-be-determined self-sacrifice required of one of them to put it all to right. Another long road disappearing under the roar of the Impala, Sam glancing at Dean, steady at the wheel, at Cas in the backseat and Crowley beside him. The four of them, geared up and grim-faced. Ready for another fight, another compromised victory.</p><p>“The only way we’re going to make it through this,” Dean says, “is by having each others’ backs. Trusting each other. Believing in each other.” </p><p>This had been another year of good intentions gone wrong. Another year they broke apart and came back together. Another year Sam thought about putting this life and this brother and these brothers-in-arms behind him. But what if his absence meant an end to all the ‘anothers’ worth having? Another tomorrow, another life saved? Another moment it was the four of them, united against the world?</p><p>Sam looks to his brother, glances over his shoulder at Cas. “I do believe in us.” Glances at Crowley in the rearview mirror. “I believe in all of us.”</p><p>And what chance does another apocalypse have, when matched up against that?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Last chapter to be posted on 10.9.2020. Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. What You Are</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The road to redemption is paved with potholes, lined with detours, and staked with unintelligible mile markers. Dean’s driven down it himself, more than once. He knows how bad it hurts to have to double back, to feel like you’ve broken down on the side of the road. Like this is as far as you’ll ever get.</p>
<p>“You’re gonna be alright.” He leans against the Impala next to the Crowley. “We’ll figure something out. And even if we don’t?” Dean shrugs.</p>
<p>The hunter and the fully-restored demon consider the rubble of the ruined Hellgate and the remains of a spell that cost a soul, even if only the remnants of one.</p>
<p>After a long silence, Crowley nods. He straightens the cuffs of his hunter jacket, knocks one boot against the other. Glances off down the road that lies ahead. “It doesn’t matter what you are, after all,” he mutters to himself, and means it. “It only matters what you do.”</p>
<p>This road to redemption is an especially long and difficult. But it doesn’t have to be a lonely one. Dean slaps his friend on the shoulder, walks around to the driver’s side. Crowley gets into the car, and together, they continue on down the road.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading! If you enjoy fanfiction where Crowley is one of the boys or a member of the Winchester family, check out my other work.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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